11 LAPD officers face discipline in May Day melee
Police Chief William Bratton also calls for four other officers to be fired in connection with the debacle.
Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton announced today his plans to discipline 11 officers and called for the termination of four others for their roles in a May Day melee last year in which police were accused of using excessive force to clear immigration protesters and journalists from MacArthur Park.
The penalties mark a significant step in the Los Angeles Police Department's effort to recover from an incident that Bratton called "a phenomenal black eye." LAPD officers were videotaped wielding batons and shooting rubber bullets in an attempt to disperse the crowd. A scathing internal investigation into the incident blamed poor leadership and overly aggressive tactics by officers in the field.
Bratton and Deputy Chief Mark Perez, citing personnel privacy rules, declined to name any of the involved officers or publicly elaborate on the officers' transgressions during a presentation this morning to the Police Commission, the department's civilian oversight board. In general, Perez said, officers were being punished for excessive use of force, failing to rein in overly-aggressive cops or lying to investigators during the inquiry.
Four officers have been notified of Bratton's desire to fire them, Perez told the Police Commission. Under the city's charter, the chief does not have the authority to summarily fire an officer. Instead, an officer must go before a three-person disciplinary panel known as the Board of Rights. After considering the evidence in a case, such a panel can find that an officer should be fired, suffer a less severe punishment or be vindicated. The chief can accept the panel's recommendation or impose a lesser punishment, but he cannot seek to increase the discipline.Among the officers who were disciplined, one has been issued a 10-day suspension, two others were suspended for five days and five were suspended for three days. Three officers were given official reprimands. The suspended officers can elect to appeal their penalties to Boards of Rights or accept their punishment.
Tim Sands, president of the union that represents the department's roughly 9,300 rank-and-file officers, stressed in a statement that the chief's decision "does not mean that the administrative process is over for the officers" and that officers would have a chance at their appeal hearings to more fully explain their actions. He called on the boards' members to take into consideration that the department's own investigation found major shortfalls in leadership and training.
